


Catch and Release

by omphale23



Category: Band of Brothers, Standoff
Genre: Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-14
Updated: 2010-03-14
Packaged: 2017-10-08 00:18:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/70758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/omphale23/pseuds/omphale23
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lewis Nixon hated fishing. He always had. It was boring, it was pointless, and he couldn't ever figure out how to get the worm to hold still on the hook. He preferred to get his seafood from a tank in a Michelin-starred restaurant, the way nature intended.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Catch and Release

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [between two points of no return](https://archiveofourown.org/works/70750) by [omphale23](https://archiveofourown.org/users/omphale23/pseuds/omphale23). 



> Okay, so there's this crossover AU in the planning stages for [cranky_zen](http://community.livejournal.com/cranky_zen). It features Matt Flannery as Nixon's grandson (I KNOW. Explains a lot, right?)
> 
> The whole thing is a really long explanation; suffice to say that it also pulls in _Life_, _Defying Gravity_, _Office Space_, _Beat_, and _The Baker_. And possibly other things that I've forgotten at the moment.
> 
> For now, with a lot of help from [mardia](http://mardia.livejournal.com) and dedicated beta assistance by [sansets](http://sansets.livejournal.com), I bring a ficlet from a random point in the mid-1990s. This is, as always, based on fictional characters and I mean no disrespect toward any real people who share their names.

Lewis Nixon hated fishing. He always had. It was boring, it was pointless, and he couldn't ever figure out how to get the worm to hold still on the hook. He preferred to get his seafood from a tank in a Michelin-starred restaurant, the way nature intended.

He'd tried to pretend. It made Dick happy, getting up before dawn and loading up the car and setting out, determined to catch something with fins for dinner. Dick hummed as he packed up the car, little tunes under his breath that didn't sound familiar. The noise made Lew smirk and stumble to the shower despite the ridiculous time on the clock.

Lew had liked that part. Not getting up early, but the drive, sitting next to Dick as they spun through the dark, watching the sun come up over the dashboard. Lew usually fell asleep somewhere over the Pennsylvania line, his head against the door and his legs stretched out across the expanse of vinyl until his knees bumped against Dick's thigh. He'd wake up as they bounced down a dirt road, or as the car rolled to a stop and Dick smacked him on the leg, or as Dick opened the door roughly so that Lew slid out onto the grass, protesting vehemently.

The actual fishing, though, had been tedious and too silent and only slightly improved by the moments that Dick would look up from his pole, smile quietly, and lean his shoulder against Lew's.

Lew only agreed to go on the trips because on the way home, they'd drive through the dark again, fireflies sparking, until they got too tired to keep going and ended up in a motel along the way, crowded into a bed just like the old days.

In the end, Lew went fishing because it meant that he could wake up with Dick's arm thrown against his chest, with Dick snoring softly in his ear, and pretend for a few minutes that nothing could change.

But things did change. They changed because Lew panicked and wrote a letter that didn't tell the truth. Because he didn't want to admit what he'd done. Because he made a decision and then stuck to it for probably the only time in his entire life.

Lew never took his son fishing. He pretended to be allergic to the outdoors, and suggested lunches in the city, or afternoons at the ballpark—places that they wouldn't run into Dick Winters and Lew would be able to pretend that he wasn't checking around corners, avoiding a conversation that he didn't know how to start.

He only kept two real secrets from Dick Winters. His son, and after that his grandson, was the first of them.

***

It was forty years later that he woke from a nap to find Matt standing on his doorstep, looking pale and uncomfortable in his new FBI jacket, more nervous than Lew had ever seen him. They stared at each other for a few moments, before Matt blew his hair out of his eyes and rattled off, "Major Winters is out in the car, and he has a tackle box in the trunk. I'm supposed to tell you that we had a very nice lunch and he thinks I'm a pleasant young man who's considerably smarter than my grandfather."

Somewhere in the house, Grace dropped a pan.

Lew leaned on his cane, twisted himself sideways to see around Matt. Sure enough, there was Dick, looking like a thundercloud about to rain hell and glory down on some unlucky idiot. So much for secrets.

He hadn't even realized that the city had fishing holes, let alone the lake that Dick found, where he took out a boat so that Lew was well and truly trapped. Dick peppered him with questions, from _where does he live?_ to _how often do you get to see him?_ and a dozen in between. Lew was in hell, floating in the middle of more water than LA should be able to come up with in the middle of a drought, while Dick completely refused to get to the point.

He answered what he could and didn't ask anything in return, not even _how in the hell did you finally figure it out?_ and they got to everything important about his grandson except the real question, the one that started _what did you do_, and ended _why didn't you tell me?_

Lew was mostly relieved. He'd been waiting for Dick to notice for so many years, and now he could finally try to apologize. Except that they had this conversation in his head hundreds of times, and every time it started with Dick asking the question outright. Without that, Lew wasn't sure how to start. And he was pretty sure that they were both going to die of old age before Dick hit upon a way to ask.

Then again, knowing how Dick's mind worked, it was entirely possible that he planned it this way, as a subtle way of getting back at Lew for being a jackass about the whole thing in the first place.

When Dick started telling him about the latest meeting with Ambrose and how all the guys were excited to tell the stories of what they'd done since the war, Lew decided that he was definitely being subjected to a subtle and devious punishment best called Operation Payback.

Lew had never met anyone better at plotting than Dick Winters, and still he was impressed that Dick managed to put a plan together in the hours since he'd first met Matt. He was also furious that the extent of the plan involved talking about the fucking Easy Company Book Project until Lew wanted to scream.

He hated that damn book, and Dick knew it. Probably counted on it, now that he thought he'd figured out why Lew was so set against it, discovered what he was sure Lew had been trying to hide.

Dick was right, Lew didn't want to participate, but he didn't give a damn about the skeletons in his closet. The whole thing was ridiculous, just one more way for Easy to have a claim on Dick, to keep him there in that damn war for his entire life. It wasn't fair, and it pissed Lew off. He was there to watch Dick put himself back together when they got home, and he was there the day that Dick got back from refusing to ship out for Korea. None of the other guys were, they didn't see what it did to him. And now the book was—was reliving all of that time, those years, and turning them into something cleaner than Lew remembered. Something less than what they meant.

He loved Grace, he wouldn't trade his years with her, or knowing his son and Matt, for anything. But he also never quite got past losing Dick to civilian life. It was possible, if Lew were perfectly honest, that he might be a little bit jealous of Dick's fucking book project and the way that it required him to share, even now.

Lew wanted this last bit of time. He wanted to be able to say all the things they didn't get to admit before. He wanted to know when Dick would be in town, and not be surprised on his own doorstep by all the things he hadn't found a way to mention. Instead he was stuck in the middle of an enormous goddamn pond with a cane and a sunburn and Dick talking about the stupid damn book and Lew had just about had it with the whole mess.

Which was why he threw his fishing pole over the side and stood up, ready to have it out one last time or die trying.

Dick, because he was both Lew's best friend and a complete bastard, just sighed and rolled his eyes and pointed out that, even if _he_ could swim the way they did fifty years ago, Lew certainly couldn't. He then noted that neither of them had any dry clothes back in the car, and Lew wanted to kiss Dick more than he had in years. He also wanted very much to throw Dick in the lake.

He stood there, wobbling a little because this wasn't the biggest boat in the world and damned if he'd even _been_ in a boat since the seventies, while Dick looked up at him with that perfect fucking calm, and Lew couldn't—he refused to sit down. He wouldn't sit down and act like everything was fine, like he hadn't been trying and failing to find a way to explain. He refused to let Dick gloss this over and think of it as one more flaw that he was willing to ignore just to keep Lew happy.

Lew opened his mouth to say just that.

Dick looked quickly down at the water but as he glanced away, Lew saw the hurt flash over his face. He saw Dick take a shaky breath and close his eyes for an instant, and Lew was suddenly so _fucking_ sorry to be causing trouble again.

It was the expression of disappointment that Lew was trying to avoid, but they were old, so much older than they ever thought they'd be, and he was still—something. He'd never been able to keep himself from hurting people, no matter how far Lew traveled or how many times he promised himself to be nothing but honest the next time they met.

Lew sat down fast, because it was all pointless. The whole mess, all the lying and the evading and the arguing about that damn book, it was all useless in the end because here they were. They were right back where they started, wondering where to go next. Knowing that once they went back home, it was all nothing more than memories and regrets and flashes of things they wouldn't be allowed to keep.

So Lew shook his head, and he reached out and wrapped his hand over Dick's knee, and they sat there for a while, watching the water sparkle and pretending to be just two old friends, out for a fishing trip. The sunlight made Lew's eyes water, but he didn't look away.

Hours later, when they pulled up to the curb, Matt was sitting and waiting. Lew glanced over at Dick, and together they climbed out of the car, Lew leaning on Dick's arm and both of them slower than they used to be. As they walked over, Matt stood up, shuffling his feet as he watched them warily.

Dick stopped a few feet away, and Lew straightened himself, waited for it. Dick finally sighed, and said, "So, introduce us properly, then."

Lew looked at them both, at the man who had once been his whole life and the kid who was the last piece of a secret that Lew kept for most of it, and answered, "Dick, this is my grandson. Matt, this is Major Dick Winters, my best friend."


End file.
